Currents

About Currents

Currents started in Fairfield, Connecticut in 2011, which makes them part of that wave of bands who grew up on Tame Impala and decided guitars could coexist with synths after all. The core has always been Brian Wenckebach on vocals and guitar, though the lineup shifted enough in the early years that you'd need a spreadsheet to track it all.

They put out a few EPs that got passed around the internet in that mid-2010s way, but 2015's "The Place I Feel Safest" was where things crystallized. The album had this specific sound—part post-hardcore breakdown, part shimmering indie texture—that set them apart from the dozen other bands mining similar territory. "Night Terrors" and "Apnea" showed they could write songs that felt heavy without relying on volume alone.

"The Way It Is" came in 2017 and expanded everything. Bigger production, more ambitious arrangements, songs like "A Flag to Wave" that built slowly instead of hitting you immediately. This was around when they started getting serious attention outside the hardcore-adjacent scene they'd come from. "Monsters" became one of those songs that ends up on every sad playlist, which probably annoyed and pleased them in equal measure.

Then 2020 brought "The Way It Was," and suddenly they were a different band. Or maybe the same band with better equipment and more confidence. The title track is seven minutes of gradual escalation, the kind of thing you either find hypnotic or exhausting depending on your mood. "Poverty of Self" leaned harder into the metalcore side of their sound, while "Speechless" proved they could still write something relatively straightforward and have it hit.

They've always been tough to pin down genre-wise. Too polished for hardcore kids, too heavy for indie purists, too earnest for the cool crowd. But that's probably why they've stuck around. Songs like "Forget Me" and "Kill the Ache" occupy this space between aggression and melody that not many bands bother with anymore.

Their most recent output has seen them leaning further into the atmospheric side of things. More synth layers, more space in the arrangements, vocals that sometimes disappear into the mix instead of fighting for attention. Whether this is evolution or overthinking depends on who you ask.

They tour constantly, the kind of band that's always got a date somewhere even if you haven't thought about them in months. The fanbase is devoted in that specific way where people have lyrics tattooed but couldn't tell you what magazine last covered them. They're still based in Connecticut, still putting out music that splits the difference between accessible and challenging. Not the biggest band in their lane, but maybe the most consistent.

Currents shows are quiet, attentive affairs. Lettieri commands the room through restraint—there's no grandstanding. Crowds lean in rather than jump around. The guitar work is precise enough that people genuinely listen. There's something hypnotic about watching him build these things in real time.

Known for Let It Go, Alone Together, The Way It Was, Bloodhail, Overland

See Currents Live